Wednesday, February 13, 2008

documenting change: eight.


triathlon trainin'.

Last Friday I was so very proud of myself because it marked a full week of training for my triathlon every single day, beginning with the Sunday prior. Sunday was a bike ride, Monday was a swim, Tuesday was a run, Wednesday a bike ride, Thursday a swim, Friday was a run, and Saturday was a REST day.

This week - on Sunday we did another bike ride. I think the biking will prove easiest for me. I can do 10 miles easily, and my ride is only a 12 mile ride. In fact, on Sunday, I was telling my husband c., "I'm really not worried about the triathlon anymore. I think it's going to be easy."

Then last night happened. Last night my triath training class was a "hard" workout. This is what the instructor said. He said, "Tonight, we're going to do a 'hard' workout, and tomorrow, you'll do a nice easy cool down workout." I don't know why I am writing *quote* hard *unquote* - because the workout was just this: HARD.

Midway through, I was listening to this internal dialog:
"Why the hell did you sign up for a triathlon? Are you crazy? Who are you trying to impress and what are you trying to prove?"
"Well, I was trying to impress...just me. I wanted to prove something to me."
"You don't need to impress yourself. You don't need to prove things to yourself. What's the point of that?"

Also midway through the HARD. workout, I thought I might need to stop and throw up. I did not.

This is what we did: 2 slow warm-up laps around the track. Then the painful stuff began: 2 laps around the track ran with intensity - 20 crunches, 15 push ups, 20 super mans (where you lay on your stomach and quickly lift your legs and arms simultaneously, stretching the legs out to the back and the arms to the front), 20 bicycles (where your lay on your back and move your legs in a pedaling motion while you move your elbows to opposite knees). All of that happens FAST. And when we were done with the first set, we did FIVE MORE JUST LIKE THAT.

While I was making my third set of laps around the track, I thought, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. But I kept going. I finished it all, was huffing and puffing at the end. I said, "Can I lay down now?" and our instructor said, "No - Don't lay down. Now ya'll go do two cool down laps around the track."

Internal dialog:
"Is that man crazy?"
"Am I?"

I called c. after and told him what we did. c. says, "You did 100 push ups!?" I stopped to calculate. "No, I did 90 push ups." I calculated more. "And I did 120 crunches, 120 super mans, 120 bicycles and 16 laps around the track!!!!"

I drove, stunned.

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